Homeschooling With A Baby

The birthday party went well, despite a few glitches here and there. I am yet to edit the pictures. And yes, I managed to get the pinata hanged and pulled for the birthday boy, with help from nieces and (future) nephew 🙂

BTW, as the party progressed and a friend back from University time came, she did ask about how I manage to home school my eldest while having a baby on tow.

Most people have this idea that homeschooling is like conducting class like in school but you do it in your own house.

The truth is you don’t do routine and rigid classes like that in real homeschooling or should I say, unschooling.

Everyday I wake up, tired and most of the time grumpy because of the lack of sleep, or how many time I have to wake up breastfeeding, comforting a teething baby or changing his diapers. Do you think I will have the energy to conduct a proper lesson like in school for his older brother? Definitely not.

Furthermore even if my son knows how to read at this age, I am not sure he will understand what he is reading. Mind you, my son is autistic, on the PDD NOS spectrum, so the idea of him being able to read at his age now is really a novelty. Even if his physical age is 6, I think his mental and intelligence is like 4 year old. And what do you expect from a 4 year old child, finish reading the box set of Harry Potter books?

At times I do feel the pressure and the guilt of not doing much (if I were to compare to others who send their children to kindy), but then I ponder to the time when I was his age, I think I didn’t learn that much in kindergarten ( I went to Chinese kindy for 2 years with me being the sole Malay girl in the class).

For now I just want him to learn as much as life skills possible, like to be able to go to pee and poop in public toilet without being naked and jumping around, to help take care of his younger brother while Mama is trying to get a quick shower, to understand the true meaning of sympathy and empathy, to know that others have needs and wants, like when he has to be quiet since Adik needs to take nap.

The academic has to wait for now. And I have to persevere. It’s tough, it really is. Thus why RM284 per month for normal kid to go to kindy is actually nothing if you compare to effort and energy you have to put in homeschooling.

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